Tom Terrific? Too early to tell, but Savage has right look

Updated 9:14 pm, Monday, April 17, 2017

I already like the new guy better than the last guy.

The Texans' discarded $72 million man always felt like Mayor Brock or Professor Brock. A suave salesman trying to convince us he really could play the part. A smooth-talking, sharp-dressing professional with an amateur arm, always fighting and clashing behind closed doors with the big boss.

Is Tom Savage going to stick around longer than the already forgotten Osweiler?

Are we going to be dissecting someone new in six months or a year?

Because it's the Texans, it's absolutely impossible to say.

But on the first day we got to meet Bill O'Brien's class of 2017, a fourth-year quarterback with two career starts and zero touchdowns to his name instantly reminded me why he was worth pulling for the second he came into the NFL.

"The kid is a go-getter," said wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins, who's on the verge of playing for his 182nd QB in the last four years. "He doesn't quit. Even out there (Monday), he was trying to be first."

Savage was also chippy, edgy and proud. He knows he's already doubted. He's perfectly aware his eventual replacement could be drafted next week. He also insists he doesn't care.

Heading into his fourth season with the Texas, quarterback Tom Savage has made two career starts.

Heading into his fourth season with the Texas, quarterback Tom Savage has made two career starts.

Photo: Elizabeth Conley, Staff

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Tom Terrific? Too early to tell, but Savage has right look

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While Osweiler became harder and harder to believe in as each week passed - who in the world keeps insisting an NFL team traveled well? - Savage was simple and true during his initial day on the job.

"With the naysayers and all that stuff … it's funny. People always ask me about that stuff, like the doubters and naysayers," Savage said at NRG Stadium during the Texans' first offseason conditioning workout. "I'm going out there to play for everybody in that locker room and everybody who believes in me. Anybody else, I just kind of shake off. They can draft whoever they want."

What about being handed one of 32 starting QB spots in the league, but only after Osweiler was shipped to Cleveland?

"I'll never expect to be the starter," Savage said. "I'm always going to play like I'm the third-string guy and trying to make the team. And that's how I'm going to play regardless if I'm a fifth-year starter or whatever."

And what about that cross-country journey that saw Savage bounce from college to college, go more than 1,000 days without a start, then quietly sit behind everyone from Ryan Fitzpatrick and Brian Hoyer to Ryan Mallett and Osweiler before the Texans finally turned to him by default?

That's where Savage finds your soft spot.

"I bounced around quite a bit in college, and I think a lot of that journey kind of made me who I am today," he said. "This is a heck of an opportunity, and I'm really pumped for it. … I have to go out there every day and earn it."

Fitzpatrick, Hoyer, Mallett, Osweiler, etc., ultimately had two things in common under O'Brien: They never fit with his vision, nor could they meet his stringent demands.

We're still figuring out what that vision truly is in Year Four. Is going 9-7 every year the bar? Is developing and sticking with a QB who can finally take the Texans to the next step a necessity or a luxury afforded only the NFL's elite?

Thankfully for Savage, he has had three years of living with, figuring out and learning from O'Brien. Heck, right now, he's still the only QB a career 27-21 coach has drafted.

So how does the Texans' new (temporary? permanent?) quarterback feel about the guy who's already been through so many?

"I love the guy. What I look forward to is going to practice every day," said Savage, sounding and appearing sincere. "He's going to be hard on me. That's what you want as a quarterback. He's the type of guy that is always talking shop with you, and that's the type of guy you want to go out there and you want to brawl for."

The O'Brien QBs whom fans always loathed or just shrugged off - Fitzpatrick, Hoyer, Mallett, Osweiler - are now surreal, fading memories. The gutsy, resilient quarterbacks this city actually took pride in - Case Keenum, T.J. Yates - won a few games but were never going to last.

Savage is still stuck in that latter group right now. If he's your new Week 1 answer, he'll take the field as one of the most inexperienced arms in the league and will easily be one of the most unlikely to win what New England just claimed.

But if No. 3 gets his shot and can actually play?

Well, he already has more local supporters than Mayor Brock ever did in Houston.

"I've (started) two games so far," Savage said. "I have a lot to go out there and prove, and this is going to be a heck of an opportunity."

Then he walked out the interview-room door, like so many Texans QBs before.